Free Republic

The draft law on the construction of churches has renewed the crisis that has existed between the ruling regimes and the Copts in Egypt since the Ottoman era. Over the years, Egypt’s Christians have requested the state to promulgate a law governing the construction of houses of worship, regulating the building of mosques for Muslims and churches for Christians, in light of the challenges in obtaining permission to build new churches, despite the growing Christian population. A law was issued on Oct. 17, 2001, governing only the construction of mosques, with no mention of the building of churches. In Egypt,...

Vatican City, Feb 25, 2016 / 12:04 am (CNA/EWTN News).- For Pope Francis, dialogue with Islam is a core issue. He recently voiced hopes to meet a major Sunni leader: the Grand Imam of al-Azhar Mosque, Ahmed el-Tayeb. "I want to meet him. I know that he would like it," the Pope said during his Feb. 18 in-flight press conference. The Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, headed by Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, is reaching out to al-Azhar Mosque. "We are looking for the way, always through Cardinal Tauran because it is the path, but we will achieve it," Pope Francis said...

I'm a Muslim & I love you: Egypt-born man to Trump Reuters | Feb 22, 2016, 10.27 AM IST Elhamy Ibrahim, 62, is a Muslim who does not like very many other Muslims these days, but loves Donald Trump. The Egyptian-born businessman who came to the United States in 1981 and became a citizen two decades later said in an interview on Friday that he was alarmed by changes in Egypt, where, in his view, high unemployment and poverty have driven many young Egyptians to religious extremism. He strongly backs Trump's proposal to ban Muslims from entering the US until...

Egypt's embattled Coptic community on Monday, February 15, marked the one year since video surfaced of the murder of 21 Coptic Orthodox Christians on a beach in Libya. The men were marched in orange suits across the beach, forced to kneel and then were beheaded by Islamic State group militants. The Christians, who went to Libya as construction workers to support their families, were seen saying their last prayers. As the blade came to their neck they all cried in unison "Ya Rabbi Yasou" or 'O My Lord Jesus', according to a video and Christian experts familiar with the situation....

After Egypt President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi apologised for not finishing the reconstruction work of Christian properties damaged in the aftermath of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi's ouster in 2013, the engineering unit of the Armed Forces immediately started cooperating with Coptic authorities to wrap up the pending renovations, religious Coptic figures said. While visiting Cairo's St. Mark Cathedral on Christmas Eve, El-Sisi apologised to the country's Christians over the delay in the completion of renovations, which he says will be done by the end of 2016.The churches undergoing renovation were attacked in August 2013 on the day of the dispersals of pro-Morsi...

A new study by the Media Research Center (MRC) has revealed that mainstream media devoted some six times as much air time to covering the recent death of Harambe the gorilla than they did to the gruesome Islamic State decapitation of 21 Coptic Christians on a Libyan beach last year. On Saturday, May 28, security officials shot a gorilla named Harambe to protect a three-year-old boy who'd fallen into the pen at the Cincinnati Zoo. In the five days that followed the animal’s death, the three major networks devoted a total of 1 hour, 28 minutes and 17 seconds to...

A mob ransacked and torched seven Christian homes in a province south of the Egyptian capital, Cairo, after rumors spread that a Christian man had an affair with a Muslim woman, according to a statement by the local Orthodox Coptic church. Released late Wednesday, it said that during the May 20 attack, the mother of the Christian man, who had fled the village, was publicly stripped of her clothes by the mob to humiliate her.

But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads in every place the fragrance that comes from knowing him. -2 Corinthians 2:14 The men in black uniforms stand behind their prisoners, who kneel on the beach. The kneeling men wear bright orange jumpsuits. The men wearing black, terrorists affiliated with ISIS, hold knives. A subtitle on the video reads: “The people of the cross, the followers of the hostile Egyptian church.” The spokesman addresses the camera, and then the prisoners are beheaded. It has been one year since ISIS released that...

Those who can watch the video saw the 21 orange jumpsuited men mouthing ONE WORD: "Isa" Muslims also say Isa. They say that "Isa" will return at the end of the world to break all the crosses and kill all the pigs. Pigs HE created. Isa appears to many innocent Muslims; an estimated 6 million convert to Isa each year despite the threat of death. To some of them, Isa doesn't say His Own NAME, but they still know Who He IS.A detachment of troops, and officers from the chief priests and Pharisees, came [to the garden of Gesthemane] with...

Behind the rise of ISIS, the Libyan Civil War, the unrest in Egypt, Yemen and across the region may be a single classified document.That document is Presidential Study Directive 11.You can download Presidential Study Directive 10 on “Preventing Mass Atrocities” from the White House website, but as of yet no one has been able to properly pry number 11 out of Obama Inc.Presidential Study Directive 10, in which Obama asked for non-military options for stopping genocide, proved to be a miserable failure. The Atrocities Prevention Board’s only use was as a fig leaf for a policy that had caused the...

In the coming days, construction will commence on a new church in Egypt dedicated to the martyred Coptic Christians beheaded by the Islamic State in Libya in February.The new church, bearing the name “Church of the Libyan Martyrs,” will be built in the Minya Governorate, south of the capital, Cairo. The church will cost $1.3 million, half of which has already been raised.Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi granted permission for the construction of the church last February after Islamic State militants murdered 21 Coptic Christians on a Libyan beach.According to Father Rafic Greiche, spokesman for the Catholic Church in Egypt,...

Work will begin in the coming days in Minya on a church that was planned to honour the deaths of 20 Egyptian Coptic Christians who died in a brutal sectarian attack by militants in Libya earlier this year. Plans and licences for the ‘Church of the Martyrs’ have been finalised to begin the work, head of the Samalout municipality in Minya said, as reported by MENA state news. Major General Gamal Mubaral Qinawy confirmed that the church will be built in the village of Al-Awar, in the district of Samalout. Qinawy said that work on the construction of the church...

What made non-Muslims convert to Islam, leading to the creation of the Islamic world? Early historical sources—both Muslim and non-Muslim—make clear that the Islamic empire was forged by the sword; that people embraced Islam, not so much out of sincere faith, but for a myriad of reasons—from converting in order to enjoy the boons of being on the “winning team” to converting in order to evade the dooms of being on the “losing team.” Modern day Muslims and other apologists—primarily in academia, government, and mainstream media—reject this idea. They argue that the non-Muslims who embraced Islam did so from sheer...

ISLAM arose with remarkable speed and mystery. Patricia Crone’s well-stocked mind, clear prose and unflinching intellectual honesty were devoted to explaining why. She had little time for Islam’s own accounts of its origins: “debris” as far as historians were concerned, and hopelessly inconsistent. Far better, she reckoned, to fill the gap with contemporary sources and knowledge of other cultures, from messianic Maoris to Icelanders. That required both personal and intellectual bravery. The central beliefs of Islam, such as the way the Koran took shape, the life of Muhammad and Islam’s relations with other religions, are sensitive subjects. Outside scrutiny can...

The comfortable, suburban Christians who are sitting in their armchairs and tut-tutting at us for being so uncharitable as to hold a Muhammad cartoon contest should take careful note of this. Islamic law asserts authority over non-Muslims. To send the signal that we will submit to Sharia blasphemy laws regarding drawing Muhammad, even if we are doing so out of a misguided sense of “respect,” will only embolden Islamic supremacists to make more demands. The endpoint of these demands is shown in this incident in Egypt. These comfortable, suburban Christians in the West are ensuring a future of harassment, persecution,...

Four Egyptian kids who dared make fun of ISIS in a harmless video are headed for trial along with their teacher on charges of “insulting Islam,” after their Muslim neighbors got hold of the footage and went to police. Aged between 15 and 16, the youths could face up to five years in a youth detention center—while the teacher would serve any sentence he receives in prison—if the court finds them guilty of violating Egypt’s blasphemy law, Egypt-focused activists say. Egyptian Christian and civil rights groups are leading calls for their release, but the five—members of the Coptic community that...

In a 25-minute interview on Arabic satellite TV with Dr. Mona Roman, Coptic Christian Bishop Agathon fully exposed the plight of his Christian flock in Minya, Egypt—a region that has a large Coptic minority that is steadily under attack.

Slaughter On The Beach: ISIS Behead And Shoot Ethiopian Christians In Sickening New Propaganda Video Video seems to show militants in Libya holding one group of at least 16 captive on a beach and 12 others in a desert Before the killings a masked fighter in black brandishes a pistol as he vows to kill Christians if they do not convert Ethiopia unable to confirm its citizens were killed by militants in the footage but condemned the 'atrocious act' It comes two months after 21 Egyptian Christians were beheaded by extremists in a similar video from Libya By LYDIA WILLGRESS...

April 19, 2015 ISIS Claims Slaughter Of Christians In Libya Again Displaced Sunni people, who fled the violence in the city of Ramadi, arrive at the outskirts of Baghdad, April 17, 2015 CAIRO - A video released by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) on Sunday appears to show the killing of two different groups of captured Ethiopian Christians by the extremist group's Libyan affiliates. The 29-minute online video purports to show militants holding two groups of captives. It says one group is held by an ISIS affiliate in eastern Libya known as Barka Province and the other...

Boko Haram Adopts ISIS' Bloody Religious Cleansing Strategy By Steve Dorsey April 19, 2015 The Islamic militant group Boko Haram is adopting ISIS' bloody strategy of stamping out Christianity with a frightening fervor, putting Nigeria's 70 million followers of Jesus in danger for their lives, fearful human rights advocates say. Boko Haram leaders vowed their formal allegiance to IS in an audio message in Arabic posted to Twitter last month, according to intelligence analysts. The militant group has launched murderous rampages across northeastern Nigeria, and into neighboring Chad, Cameroon and Niger. In an attack April 7, Islamist extremists disguised themselves...